We got to Salvador on Friday 20th Feb and Carnaval had just started. The journey from the airport (yes we cheated) was a new experience for us in terms of sights - seeing the favelas on the hillsides crowded with crumbling buildings, built-up tower blocks and bits of rainforest. It was very different to what we had seen in Asia and Europe. Salvador is gorgeous - well the Pelourinho is anyway - lots of restored colonial architecture, cobbled streets and churches everywhere. There was a real buzz in the air - people were setting up stages and sound systems, milling about, selling and buying etc. It was really hot and sunny, so much so that it was hard to endlessly amble, even though it was interesting and/or pretty and had a happy atmosphere.

In the evening we walked through the Pelo and unbeknownst to us ended up on the Campo Grande circuit (which is where the tourist office told us was not really safe for tourists). There weren't any tourists here and there was a point where we thought 'hold on, lets not go too far up that road' but everyone was having so much fun, including us. Its really too hard to describe adequately. There were massive trucks with huge inbuilt speakers and live vocalists, musicians, drummers etc., along with dancers, some in costume, some in drag and many just joining in along the side of the road. There were brilliant capoeira displays. The music was amazing, the dancing was amazing - young hot men getting down to it and pelvic thrusting up the street, women and girls of all ages shaking their asses. And I mean from the age they can walk, for boys and girls. The atmosphere was wonderful. When you smiled at someone, they always smiled back. It was impossible not to join in. It was my favourite night of carnaval in terms of music and atmosphere. The bloco sound systems sent vibrations down your entire body. The flight, the cost, everything was justified. We got a bit peckish and ended up crawling under a bar into a little room with plastic chairs where we got fed a dinner of big lumps of fat and some meat in a beany sauce with rice. It was good apart from the huge chunks of fat. And everyone was still really friendly, a real carnival atmosphere. We got to bed much later than planned, but still early for Carnaval (about 1am).

The next day, Saturday, we took another walk around the Pelo in the day, had a drink in the square. In fact I'm not totally sure what we did all day, just ambled around I think. In the early evening we learnt that sometimes its best not to engage in conversation with the locals in broken Spanish/Portuguese if it means unknowingly offering and then not giving a meal to a crazy crackhead who then proceeds to threaten you and your girlfriend in Portuguese. He followed us round for a bit and we chose to hang near the Military Police before heading off to buy a pastelo in order to appease him, but by then he had disappeared. Shame.

Anyway, then we had some caipirinhas and relaxed, watched more trios and blocos parade past and it was all good again. We headed back to our dorm (yes - we are now reduced to staying in dorm rooms as we can't afford doubles any more - certainly not during Carnival and possibly ever again.... well maybe at least in Brazil...anyway...its not ideal, but good for meeting people.)

On Sunday our hostel put on a lunch before our bloco party round the Pelo - time to don our free T-shirts and eat surprisingly tasty stewed beef with beans, rice and salad. The caipirinhas are going down very well too. We paraded and danced round a bit before heading back to the hostel and meeting up with our room-mates who turned out to be sound - an Aussie vet and lawyer combo. So we went out to a very cheap local restaurant to eat some more meat, beans and rice. And then some more home-made caipirinhas before walking to the massive lift/elevator to the lower part of town to catch a bus to Barra - another bloco circuit, this one is more touristy. On the bus we had some pleasant drunken conversation with a Salvadorian girl called America and everyone was in good spirits. It was massive and we worked our way through the throngs of people to a relatively spacious point where we could drink and dance, before we got hungry and set off looking for some delicious toasted cheese on sticks. More drinks and dancing and fending off amorous men (as by this time it was just Yeumee, me and Lawrence) before we headed home at around 4-5am. It was crowded but fun and although there were many attempts at a kiss or feel it was all pretty good-natured and no-one really crossed the line. I should mention that none of us were mugged or pickpocketed seeing as every book and person warns you about this (this was nothing compared to Notting Hill Carnival if you ask me). One traveller told us that 7/10 people she had met had been robbed, one at knifepoint and one at gunpoint. So hey maybe we were lucky or maybe we were just careful, or more likely we had nothing to steal.

Monday was a write-off (who would have thought that drinking all day and all night would hurt the next day?) but the four of us managed to get tickets and the all important T-shirt to join a bloco for the last night. This was a bit of a risk and beyond our budget but we got talked into it really as everyone else was doing it (we should have known then). Basically you can still have a great time as 'popcorn' - just bobbing along and choosing which bloco to follow whenever you want, or just staying still. But hey, this one had electronic music and Pete Tong, plus 2 other DJs whose name I don't know but apparently are big and famous (and a bit crap if you ask me, too hard and soulless). Anyway I don't remember much about the day apart from feeling nauseous.

But in the evening we went round the Pelo and saw lots more small trios and dancing, costumes and suchlike, all on a very family-orientated vibe. It was brilliant still. We danced and had fun and ate cheese and drank caipirinhas.

Tuesday was yet more ambling round the Pelo before Yeumee and I went to the beach at Barra. It was busy and the sea wasn't very inviting due to all the debris floating in it, but we paid for a couple of deckchairs and had a lovely time reading and people watching. Everyone is still being really nice and helpful to us gringos. As the blocos started to come past we felt the music literally pumping through our hearts so we headed back to get ready to go out.

Maybe it was our 'sexy' ripped-up (not customised by ourselves I would like to point out)T-shirts but today some men were a little too 'keen' but we got to the Skol (not the same but similar) bloco along with thousands of other gringos. Of course it was too busy to dance, I made an effort but I quickly started to hate everybody inside it as they shoved and pushed around. And someone tried to pickpocket Lawrence's disposable camera. The music was not great but I'm being a bit mean as there were some excellent moments. The Brazilian crowd weren't really feeling it either though. So anyway we hung back a bit and joined the bloco behind for a while, which was playing some good reggae and dub. Then we rejoined our bloco and found Grant and Yeumee again before heading back with burning feet at about 6am. Phew! We were looking forward to some non-carnaval Salvador now that Lent had begun.

However, there was no let up on Ash Wednesday! There were still drumming bands and processions through the streets, although they may have had some religious significance as they were throwing flour around and there seemed to be some preaching going on. Most of the stages were being dismantled, but our hostel had a four-piece samba band who were brilliant and it wasn't long before the whole place was dancing. We still managed to get a fairly early night so we could enjoy our last day in Salvador. We caught up with the tourist activities of visiting churches, taking photos of the picturesque cobbled streets and the largo de pelourinho where slaves were auctioned. Then we went to a restaurant with Grant and Yeumee and ate too much and drank lots of sangria. We ended up going to bed at 4am with a lot of Sangria inside us - not the plan but it seems that we always have to have a big journey with a massive hangover...

...The bus left at 10am and the journey was supposed to take 24 hours but for some reason it took 30. I was sick in the first couple of hours yet recovered fairly swiftly after that, but by then Lawrence had come down with "flu" and neither of us can handle Lawrence being ill. I'm no nurse as I'm sure he will agree. However the journey itself was fine - the seats reclined, it had air-con, the people were friendly. We spent most of the time sleeping or looking out of the window. The views were great - little towns made of a strip of pretty single storey houses (all in different colours) along the road or big mountains or rainforest or plains full of cows or huge favelas on the hillsides. It was different to anything I'd seen in a while and it was quite nice. That's not to say I wasn't pleased to get off after 30 hours of it.